Get Your Own Monastery
by Constant Babble
Summary: On finding peace in the nest of a meditating Shur-hod demon clan. Angel and the Doctor both decide that Vegas would have been the better plan. One-shot.


**Author's note: **Third in the _Blood and Time_ series, set while Angel is meditating in Sri Lanka to deal with his grief after Buffy's death, and sometime before the Doctor meets Rose. Plot-wise, you don't need to read the first two stories in the series to understand this one. Just don't be surprised that Angel and the Doctor (kind of) know each other.

We changed the ending a tiny bit from what was shown in "Heartthrob" (AtS, season 3) for obvious reasons.

**Get Your Own Monastery**

Morning bell rang just as the first rays of Earth's sun shone around the mountain. Orange and red splashed up from the black outline of the highest peak like a wave hitting a boulder. Snow crunched under the Doctor's dark shoes, his footsteps sounding clear amongst the lighter padding of the monk's bare feet. Amongst the lines of red-clad monks, the Doctor seemed to be his own shadowed mountain. Black jacket over dark clothes, resisting the break of dawn.

The main temple was a grand wooden structure, its roof sweeping into ornate curls at each of the four corners. When his turn came the Doctor stepped through the doorway, his fingers brushing against the wood that had long ago become smooth with a thousand similar touches.

He reached his mat quickly. The newest members and guests always sat near the front. While the Doctor _had_ technically visited this monastery before, he hadn't bothered with mentioning their mistake in placing him with the visitors. Last time he had been there, he hadn't stayed very long and he had looked quite different. Completely different, actually.

Definitely not worth the explanation.

He settled quickly, shaking off some of his excess energy before he sat with his legs crossed and his hands resting comfortably on his knees. Around him he could hear the creak of wood, an occasional candle spitting, and the small fidgeting movements of the others. Lee, behind him, seemed to have an itch behind the ear that could not be dealt with to any level of satisfaction. Hiruni, a visitor sitting two over to his left, kept tugging at his robes in the way very new members often did before they became comfortable in the new dress code. To his right...the Doctor resisted the urge to open his eyes and look. The tingling sensation of a person prickled at the back of his neck, but he could not make out any sounds of a newcomer. No soft breathing, no hiss of the robe moving. Not even that annoying touch-step that people do when they're trying to walk as quietly as possible.

But the person settled next to him, all evidence of there not being a person there at all notwithstanding. A second passed and-there! His confirmation.

"What the hell are you doing here?" a voice hissed beside him. It took him a moment, but the Doctor suddenly pegged it for the voice of that vampire he'd picked up a while back. Angel. That was his name.

The Doctor swallowed his grin at being so profoundly right about someone being there in spite of the vampire's numerous abilities at stealth. His face set and his eyes still closed, he said with every bit of sarcasm he could muster and still keep his voice under the shuffling of feet passing by, "Meditating."

"No," Angel insisted under his breath, "_really_."

The Doctor slowly opened one eye, raising an eyebrow at Angel, who looked both hilariously livid and even more hilariously out of place in a white shirt and trousers. Almost imperceptibly, the Doctor tipped the top of his head down, directing Angel's attention to the overwhelming evidence that he was, in fact, meditating.

Angel made some sort of noise deep in his body that resembled a growl, though it was far too low for any human to hear it. But what exactly it was supposed to mean was anyone's guess.

The Doctor flashed a quick grin in response and then pressed his eyes closed again, letting out a long relaxing breath, the end of it wavered into _almost_ a laugh. He could practically feel Angel's eyes narrow at him.

"You're not dressed properly," Angel pointed out, as if this tiny bit of evidence called into question the idea of the Doctor meditating, in spite of the fact that he actually was meditating. Or was trying to, at least.

Either way, he let his jaw drop open in shock and looked down at his outfit. He was clearly horrified by this revelation of his own wardrobe. That noise Angel made was definitely a growl. The Doctor snapped his mouth shut again, settling deeper into stillness.

"You can't stay here," Angel told him a moment later through the corner of his mouth.

"Really? Just watch me," the Doctor answered, far above any approved volume for speech. The back of his head prickled under the collective glares of the other visitors that said he was doing it _wrong_, they _knew_ he was. The Doctor flashed a grin at them, too. Lee actually smiled back before he returned to scratching at his ear.

"This is my monastery," Angel muttered, pointedly facing forward, now, as several of the head monks entered the room through a dark side door and lined up in front of them. As they sat down, the Doctor couldn't help but think that they utterly failed in looking half as serene as the gold statue of Buddha behind them. He'd give them about a quarter...maybe a third as serene. He was feeling generous.

"Didn't see your name on it," the Doctor muttered back.

"I got here first. Basic rules of -"

"The playground," the Doctor finished for him. He must have run out of generosity.

"And the front seat. It's a cross-cultural honor system."

"I failed cultural studies," the Doctor's voice had lowered to something that would surely be out of hearing range for a human. Part of his mind had settled into the calm emptiness of meditation, the rest of it was enjoying the experiment to see just how well a vampire could hear.

"Then let me give you lesson one," Angel replied at a tone that wavered slightly on the line of Human Range and Below Human Range. He was also testing the Doctor's alien hearing ability, and he heard Angel's first lesson in cultural studies perfectly: "Go away."

"Right in the middle of everything? That would be embarrassing."

Angel let out something like a silent snort. "You have shame?"

The Doctor smirked back at him.

A gong rang. The clear tone cut across the room, settling everyone into perfect stillness. Well, perfect physical stillness. The Doctor could sense Angel's restless agitation next to him, even though Angel was otherwise the stillest of them all, and remained so for the entire hour they sat there. When the gong rang again, Angel waited patiently for the head monks to file back out through the side door before standing abruptly and weaving away through the crowd of people that were stretching stiff muscles and cracking too-still backs and joints.

The Doctor's bark of laughter followed Angel out.

The hours following morning meditation were supposed to be filled with basic chores. Quickly swapping his dish duty for sweeping the second meditation hall's floors, the Doctor headed over, armed with a broom, and arrived just in time to see Angel beginning his assault on the wooden floorboards with his own broom. Crossing his legs at his ankles, the Doctor leaned his shoulder against the doorframe.

"Year 400," the Doctor said loudly.

Angel looked up and glared. "What?" he asked.

The Doctor shrugged like it was of little consequence. "I was here in the year 400. So I was here first."

Angel let out a sigh of annoyance and went back to his work on the floors, biting his lip like he was trying to decide how much he really wanted to argue this.

"Aren't you supposed to be in Los Angeles anyway?" the Doctor asked, looking around for any misplaced American celebrities. "Did you get yourself lost again? Don't expect me to show up every time you forget to get directions to the theater."

"I took some time off," Angel said shortly.

"Ah." The Doctor pushed away from the doorway and took up sweeping on the other side of the room. Maybe now wasn't the best time to tell Angel that he had been here in the year 400 and the only monks who had changed at all were the novices. Or the large pile of human bones at the bottom the a nearby canyon.

"Aren't you supposed to be adventuring or something?" Angel asked without looking up from his work.

"Maybe I took some time off," the Doctor answered.

Angel grunted, but otherwise didn't follow up.

They swept in silence. The air seemed to grow heavy and the Doctor felt the dull ache of it like stretching a muscle long atrophied. Which, he supposed, was accurate. Friends had become so distant to him that a second encounter with the same person who wasn't trying to kill him (at the moment) felt odd. Maybe he should have kept dish duty and tried to pry information from Shen, like his original plan had been.

Because this plan (which was not actually a plan at all) was not working. He brushed some dust onto his shoe and took up trying to sweep it off again, which didn't work for some reason. Did he accidentally end up with dust-magnetic shoes? Dust-attracting shoes _were_ theoretically possible. Kind of impractical...

Well, either something had to happen, or the Doctor was going to have to kill himself. That was all there was to it.

"So..." he found himself saying, "what brings you here?" Hadn't he just said that?

This time, Angel paused his sweeping, his shoulder muscles tensing in a way that would have seemed odd if it hadn't been so familiar to the Doctor - that uncontrollable spasm of pain that came with someone prodding an open wound. Angel made a sudden movement, like he was about to swing around (and perhaps punch the Doctor again? It had only happened once, but it was a rather memorable movement), but then Angel stopped himself and settled back into stillness. Maybe the meditation was working, whatever it was supposed to be doing for him.

Angel finally answered in a tired tone, like he'd been doing this far too long, "I'm working through a few things." Then he resumed sweeping, a bit more purposefully.

"Ah." The Doctor pushed more dirt around, without actually making any progress. Angel seemed to be working hard enough for the two of them. The exercise of sweeping was growing dull. Forget the vampire, drop the broom (he was above sweeping, now that he thought about it), go sort out any problems that seemed to be devouring the local villagers and leave. _That_ was a plan.

His broom clattered to the floor.

"I'd meditate somewhere quieter," the Doctor advised and turned on his heel.

Whatever patience he had amassed to let him take the cautious approach to this place seemed to have evaporated. The Doctor marched down the steps from the hall that he'd been and headed back for temple. He took the steps two at a time, brushing past several elders as he did. Topping the stairs in a run, he dashed around the doorframe and skidded to a stop in front of the giant bronze gong. The striker was half of his height and heavy. He took a moment to adjust his grip after he hefted it up and then slammed it against the gong.

Sound vibrated through him, deep to a point where he felt it in his gut more than heard it. He hit it again. And again, ruining the purity of the sound with endless repetition.

The first curious heads appeared in the doorway as the Doctor continued his assault on the gong. He ranked these first responders as the most intelligent, some with a warning label and the rest as potential leaders if he needed to assign tasks.

More started to pour in, wincing against the din that reverberated throughout the room, behind them, followed the ones who obviously only arrived because they were following the crowd. They stood on their toes to get a look at what was going on, but the sight of him did nothing to alleviate their confusion.

Sajith, one of the elders, approached; his slow, sure movements unhurried by the levels of noise nor the violence of the Doctor's attack. A meter away from him, Sajith ducked in a quick bow. The Doctor only grinned back at him, vengeance flashing in his eyes. "You and I are going to have a talk," he said, although the sound of his voice was quickly buried in the cacophony.

The temple was nearly full now, everyone naturally settling back into their usual positions for lack of any other instructions. Some of the elders even settled onto their mats. When the last of the monks stepped into the temple, the Doctor finally stopped and rested the striker on his shoulder; pulled back and ready for another strike. He waited, panting, for the sound to clear from the room and then for the heavy silence to take its place.

Another elder, Ishan, appeared next to the first, dipping in a bow that the Doctor acknowledged by pulling himself up into a more aggressive stance.

He directed his eyes at the small, confused crowd of human initiates. "You," he said, pointing at them, "should all run. Whatever peace you seek. It's not here."

They shifted nervously, all of them looking at them looking at the others, waiting for someone else to go first. Lee, who had been one of the first in, started to stand, but made it no further than a hesitant crouch. Sometimes, the Doctor marveled that humans became one of the hardier species of the universe.

"Suit yourself," the Doctor huffed, directing his attention back to Sajith. "You have been devouring townspeople and travelers for hundreds of years. Stealing their life so you could drag out yours. It stops now."

"He's lost it," whispered one of the initiates. "Isolation does not do everyone good."

Sajith bowed again, shaking his head.

"Run," the Doctor repeated.

Lee actually stood up all the way this time, and stepped towards the door, but before he could reach it, one of the elders dragged it closed. Moments later, other entrances thudded shut, the Doctor noted the incongruous electronic locks that lid into place as each door close. Alien indeed.

"So sorry," Sajith hissed. "They cannot carry stories of fear away from us. We need a fresh supply on which to feed."

"Let them go," the Doctor said, his grip tightening on the stricker.

"Why would I?" Sajith smiled at him, showing unusually pointed teeth.

Options ran through the Doctor's mind. Most of them ended in blood. He could see the elder's skull cracking under the force of the striker. The gong had enough resonance to turn the sonic screwdriver into a weapon, and a deadly one at that. He wouldn't survive, nor would the human food supply, but neither would his enemies.

"I can give you something better," he said. "Just let them go."

"Intriguing. What would that be?"

Behind Sajith, the initiates had started to panic, realizing at last that their lives were in real danger, the clung together like frightened sheep. Lee worked at keeping them together, shooting threatening looks at the other monks, who appeared less and less serene with every moment.

"Near immortality," the Doctor promised. "And the ability to be young again. Look at my eyes. I am not young."

Sajith did look in his eyes, and licked his lips in hunger. The Doctor pushed all of the emotion from his face. He could trade his life for the humans, yes, but even if Sajith refused to let them go and devoured him now, the Doctor suspected that his own life force would burn the creature along with the other monks who fed through their leader from the inside out. He called it a draw, but thought of it as a draw in his favor.

There was a sudden crash to the Doctor's right as one of the side doors that the elder monks came through flew open. Everyone jumped and turned just in time to see one of the monks fall heavily to the floor in front of Angel's dark figure. Of course, he would have had to find a way to get there under cover from the direct morning sun. The restricted passageways reserved for the elders seemed reasonable.

"He's not kidding, you know," Angel said as he strolled into the room, stepping over the monk's body. "I bet the high from _his_ life force is incredible."

The Doctor rolled his eyes, but took advantage of Angel's appearance. He snapped his fingers at the huddled humans. He tugged out his sonic screwdriver and directed it at the door closest to the initiates. "Look!" he said, waving the screwdriver at the door as it swung open."Lee. Get them out. Now."

Lee nodded and started pushing people toward the open door.

Sajith hissed, the wrinkled skin on his face starting to peel away from his true, redder skin underneath.

"Hungry?" the Doctor taunted, dropping his sonic screwdriver into his pocket and wrapping his hand around the handle of the striker again. It lept for him and he swung the striker like a baseball bat, catching it on the chin mid-jump. Its jaw cracked and it squealed in pain. The Doctor ducked a second attack from another monk and ran for the broken door that Angel had entered through. Turning after several strides to slam the striker against another monk's head, the Doctor stumbled backward until he bumped into another body.

Both he and Angel jumped and attacked, Angel's fist stopping just in front of his nose and the Doctor barely managed to redirect his swing over Angel's head. He grinned and shrugged at Angel. It seemed like the best thing to say at the time. Angel shrugged gave his own small grin in response, and turned to block an attack from his other side, grabbing the demon monk and throwing it into one that had been running up behind the Doctor.

The Doctor checked over Angel's shoulder, noting the few remaining humans who were being ushered through the door. A half an hour's head start should be enough time to escape, he figured. And if it wasn't…then they were just unreasonably slow human beings. Lee paused as the last of them made it out, looking over at the Doctor.

The Doctor jerked his head in annoyance and Lee took the hint. He turned and ran, pulling the door closed behind him. Fusing the locks on the doors shut with the sonic screwdriver, the Doctor was left with only one door that the monks could use to run after the escaping humans.

Planting his feet, the Doctor knocked another monk away and deflected a second attack behind him, where it would encounter Angel. The Doctor quickly came to consider all attacks redirected at Angel to be thoroughly dealt with. Or he did, until Angel jumped up onto the balcony.

Not that Angel was any less deadly up there, it just became far beyond the Doctor's ability to toss monks at him. The Doctor let himself be pushed back into the broken doorway and then stood his ground, blocking any monks from rethinking their plan to eat him for the much easier meal of the humans fleeing down the mountain.

The War descended around him. The reds and yellows of their robes looked less like a sunrise now and more like blood and the golden glint of metallic armor. Bones cracked like nearby gunfire. A balcony crumbled and dust rose like smoke in the rubble of the room.

The Earth was turning under the Doctor's feet, and he was finding it very hard to cling to the planet's surface. He could feel himself slipping away. A cannon shot crashed to his right (no, no, Angel had thrown the gong at a group of monks). The Doctor hit the striker against another charging monk, forcing it back into the fray. No one could escape this fight. Not even him.

He lost track of time. Maybe he _had _slipped off of the Earth. Some of the noise had settled with the dust. A buzzing persisted that eventually resolved itself into a voice.

"Doctor?"

The vampire Angel stood in front of him, blood dripping from his hands. The Doctor forced himself to run over his recent memories, dragging them away from battlegrounds on dead planets and drowning them in the reality of now and here. The last of the monks was dead. Angel had snapped its neck and then walked over to him. He had said the Doctor's name. Twice now.

"Done?" the Doctor snapped before Angel could ask him the same thing. Hell, yes, he was done. He forced his fingers to let go of the wooden handle of the striker, and it crashed to the ground.

Angel raised an eyebrow at him. "Apparently, you should have gone to Vegas, too."

The Doctor let that idea sink in as he shoved his shaking hands into his pockets. Las Vegas. Bright lights. Glittery clothing. Really bad math. He started laughing before he could register why. "Hell, yes," he managed between gasping for breath and laughing more, "definitely should have gone to Vegas."

Angel smiled at the Doctor's laughter and eventually let out a few dry chuckles of his own. "Me, too," he said softly between laughs.

The Doctor looked around at the destruction of the temple room. It was a shame, really; all that intricate handcraftsmanship destroyed. The balcony was as good as gone and the ornately-carved and painted wooden doors to the outside all but ripped off their hinges (the Doctor wondered for a moment if they should be concerned that any of them escaped, but then he stopped wondering when he noticed that Angel's white robes were more red, now). The huge brass gong had crashed like an absurd flying saucer into one of the side walls, Tibetan prayer flags hung around them in tatters, and the striker on the floor was obscenely red, too.

Beyond the broken front doors, the tranquil, snowcapped mountains shone in the morning light. The Doctor crossed the room as if drawn toward the sight and leaned against the jagged doorframe when he reached it. His back slid down along the wood, catching a splinter here and there, until he was sitting on the stoop, his knees pulled up and his arms resting easily on them. The adrenaline was quickly draining from his system, leaving him exhausted and weak. Las Vegas. "Next time, we should do that," the Doctor said before he could think better of it.

"Next time…" Angel repeated. He gave a single nod, as if accepting a new conclusion.

Poor fool. The Doctor knew better than to come to conclusions about things like that. He gave the whole thing a firm ignoring. There was so much to ignore that he nearly had to turn his whole brain off.

Angel sank down onto the stoop next to him, leaning against the other side of the doorframe, careful not to let his legs stretch out to the strip of sun slashing across the wood deck in front of them. They watched the mountains for a while, the distant sound of people stampeding down the mountain gradually slacking away. Then Angel asked,

"What was it this time?"

"Obviously," the Doctor said, rolling his head around the doorframe to look over at Angel, "I am suffering from too many personal attachments." He lifted his fingers from where they had been curled over his knees to wave them, "I'm letting go through meditation." He did feel oddly attached to that burning red planet of his, even with it not ever existing. That did seem odd indeed. "You?" he asked.

"Same," Angel replied. "Only it's just the one attachment."

"Each attachment is The One Attachment," the Doctor said sagely.

Angel thought pensively about that for a long moment before he finally grimaced and said, "What the hell does that mean?"

"Nothing. It's rot. I made it up just now. But it sounds good, yeah?"

"Yeah," Angel agreed. "I almost thought you might be smarter than me for a minute."

The Doctor snorted. "You almost thought that, did you?" He turned, twisting his back to look into the wreckage. "I'm thinking that I may have become detached anyway," he said.

Angel's eyes flicked back, though he didn't turn his head. "That's one way of putting it…"

Resting back again against the doorframe, the Doctor looked back out at the mountains, now glowing in the sunlight. The snow at their peak was almost blinding. His mind drifted back to another mountain with an ancient man sitting under a tree. On that day, the snow had seemed to shine with the same intensity, cutting through him with pure beauty just because someone had pointed out to him that he should look at it.

"Maybe detachment isn't what we need," the Doctor said. "Detachment is a drug I use to escape my problems." He showed his teeth to Angel, making light of what he'd just said. "That one I meant!"

Angel frowned in thought. "Complete detachment is dangerous," he agreed after a moment. "But there are some things it's good to detach from."

"So is your 'one attachment' one of those things?"

Angel was silent for a long time. So long, in fact, that it seemed that he might not answer. But then, finally, he said, "I can't decide. I don't see any other way to end the suffering, but… How can it be good to detach from love?"

"Probably isn't." Decisions get made that way. Ones that couldn't be made otherwise.

"So…" Angel shifted his back against the frame for a more comfortable position. Or to stall. Probably that one. "So do have any insight on detaching from grief?"

The Doctor nearly laughed. Detachment from grief, he suspected, would occur after the grief itself, which was not even in sight. Losing a planet was like that, as it turned out. Just a dull ache that would occasionally immobilize him or have him swinging strikers meant for meditation at monster's heads. Some time ago, he had tried out grieving in smaller portions, testing the thought, "my brother's dead and it's a little bit my fault" out for size. He had vomited for longer than he thought possible until exhaustion forced him into unconsciousness. No second attempt had been made.

"Nope," the Doctor said. "Not really."

Angel nodded, like he hadn't really been expecting advice anyway.

The Doctor stood up and stepped down into the sun. "So do you need an umbrella or something?" he asked, turning back and eyeing the line of sun creeping toward Angel.

"Do you have one? I was just going to wait for sunset…"

Slapping at his pockets for a moment, the Doctor found that he didn't. He jerked his head in the direction of where he'd parked the TARDIS. "I can go get one… Or bring the ship around. Since I'm here. Do you need a ride?"

Angel gave it a moment's thought. "Sure. Traveling is kind of stressful when you have to worry about not bursting into flame on your way." He pushed himself up, stretching a bit as he did. "Somehow, I think this time, the destination matters more than the journey."

"Where are you going?"

"Home." Angel nodded like he was sure this was the right answer. "But maybe…" Angel suddenly looked uncertain, and he shuffled a step backward into the safer, darker room. "If it's not too much to ask…"

The Doctor folded his arms, resting more of his weight on his left leg. "Yeah?"

"It's just that… My friends will be mad if I don't bring back gifts."

"You want to go shopping?" The Doctor said dully.

"I hear the night market in town is great. Street food. Fire-eaters. Or are they coal-walkers?" Angel shrugged.

"Snake charmers," the Doctor added to the list. It was a nice market down at the bottom of the mountain. He shrugged. "No problem," he said, turning and jogging down the steps. "I've traveled with a lot of women. I'm used to it." He grinned at the snarl that followed him across the trodden-down snow, taking note of how nice it was to have a barrier of sun between him and the big, violent lug.

**The End**


End file.
